Spencer, Nicholas - Col.

Posted February 28th, 2008 by Linda Horton

SPENCER---Col. Nicholas Spencer, the immigrant, appears to have been for a time a merchant in London, as there is recorded in Westmoreland, a power of attorney, dated 1659, from Nicholas Heyward of London, merchant, to Nicholas Spencer of London, merchant, which probably shows the time of his coming to Virginia. He settled in Westmoreland, where the parish of Cople was named in honor of the home of his family in England. He was a member of the committee of the Association of the Northern Neck, 1657 (Northumberland records), member of the House of Burgesses that continued from 1666 to 1667 (Herring II, 260); March, 1675-6 appointed one of the commissioners for employing friendly Indians in war against the hostiles (Herring II, 330); appointed Secretary of State, 1678, again March 20, 1680, and in 1685 (Sainburk Abstracts), and as President of the Council, was acting Governor, September, 1683 to April, 1684, (Herring III, 8). He died Sept. 8, 1689 (Sainbury Abstracts). As shown by various deeds, he married before July 8, 1666, Frances, daughter of Col. John Mottrom of Northumberland. Madam Frances Spencer she is styled in the records, and left several sons, of whom the eldest, Nicholas, inherited the family estates in England, from his uncle, William Spencer (who was one of the intended Knights of the Royal Oak, with an estimated income of Â£1,000 a year), and in 1707, as Nicholas Spencer of Cople, Bedfordshire, Esquire, made a deed of 6,000 acres in Westmoreland. See pedigree of Spencer of Cople, in Visitations of Befordshire. Also, Virginia Magazine, Vol. II, No. 7. Samuel Spencer was appointed from the Salisbury District, North Carolina, on the Provincial Council of Safety in 1775. Among the field officers for Anson County, in Samuel Spencer, colonel. Under the Colonial Government he represented Anson County, North Carolina in the Assembly, and was clerk of the court for that county. He was one of the three judges of the Superior Courts first elected under the constitutions, 17[illegible]. He was in the convention assembled at Hillsboro, in July, 1788. He died in 1794. See Wheeler's History of North Carolina, page 24.

Daughters of the American Revolution Genealogical and Historical Department, The Montgomery Advertiser, Montgomery, AL 10 May 1903